Top stories of 2018: The migrant caravan and immigration

By Joe Harrington jharrington@gatehousemedia.com

Tuesday

Dec 11, 2018 at 8:46 AMDec 11, 2018 at 10:44 AM

For the last two years President Donald Trump has pushed congress for a border wall and other immigration reforms. The issue seemed to have faded from the president’s Twitter thoughts for a while in 2018 as subpoenas rolled out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and international relations dominated the headlines, but a few weeks before the 2018 midterm election, a large migrant caravan from Central and South America started forming and began traveling north and taking over the president’s social media feed.

The president tweeted about it frequently, ordered troops to the border and used the caravan as a rallying call for voters to support Republican candidates who were all “strong on borders.” The use of stoking the fear of the migrant caravan for votes didn’t quite work, as images started to surface showing the caravan as smaller and quite different than what the president described.

After Election Day, where Republicans lost the U.S. House but increased their senate majority by two seats, the talk of the migrant caravan waned for several weeks. Recently, Trump has increased talk of border security both on social media and in person.

On Nov. 25, border agents used tear gas to repeal a crowd of migrants at the San Diego- Tijuana border. Some of the migrants were throwing rocks but others were children. The event continued to heighten the tension nationally on immigration.

The year ends with immigration and funding for a border wall at the center of a congressional budget fight, so expect this to remain in the news cycle in 2019.